


The Sea Shadows

by Calliopeia



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Luka Couffaine - Freeform, Lukanette, calliopeia, luka x marinette, mari - Freeform, marinette cheng - Freeform, marinette dupain cheng - Freeform, mermaid au, mermaid!luka, miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir, mircaulous ladybug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21787843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calliopeia/pseuds/Calliopeia
Summary: There's a little sailor town. A little sailor town with the costume of sending their children out into the sea so that they become adults. But deep beneath the sea, the sea shadows appear. And whatever you do, do not go near them. Unless your name is Marinette. In that case, please, do not forget the sea shadows.A lukanette fic.
Relationships: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 11
Kudos: 117





	1. You should never forget the sea shadows

Tell me.

When was the last time you went into the sea? Not to the beach, to the _sea._

How far did you get before loneliness started settling in? How far did you get before the waves pushed you back before the sea said to you _No more?_

Are you afraid of it? Of the sea?

Are you afraid of how big it is, how endless it is? Or are you scared of the waves, of the power they hold, of the way they could just snap you in a million pieces if they wished to? Maybe you fear the loneliness, of how the farther you go the more alone you are. Are you afraid of dying alone?

You shouldn’t be.

Sailors, pirates, fishermen. They aren’t afraid of dying alone. They know that in the sea, they are never alone. No, they are scared of what is down there where the sun doesn’t shine, down there were your pleas for help will never be heard by human ears.

Maybe you should also be afraid of it.

But in a small sailor town, no one can risk being scared. Being scared means not thinking right, not thinking right means making mistakes, a mistake means danger. Danger means death. You can’t be afraid of the water when your whole life and depends on it.

In this town, there’s a ritual that takes place every year, every December first. The children that just turned 16 that year go through the process of becoming adults. To be an adult, you first have to be accepted by the sea.

It is a simple ritual, really.

Each teenager gets a little boat. Little enough to fit them inside it and nothing more. They get two small paddles and good luck. Then, they are pushed into the sea by their parents. They need to paddle, paddle, paddle until they catch a current or until the sun sets down. Then, they wait. Or sleep, whichever they prefer. They spend the night in the sea, alone, and once the sun rises they need to make their way back to the town.

Sounds easy?

It is not.

You have no food, no water, no contact with any human. You have no sense of direction, no knowledge of where is right and where is left. If you fall off the boat, you will lose your ups and downs too. And when it gets dark, you have these _shadows._ Shadows that swim right under your boat, shadows too big to be fish but too small to be whales.

The ones that get back to shore without going crazy are the ones accepted as adults of the town. If you don’t make it… well, there may be some towns nearby that will accept you. You can’t come back, can’t speak to your family and friends ever again, can’t be part of the town.

And right now, that frightened Marinette Dupain-Cheng to her core.

“You’ll do perfect sweetheart”, said her father as he pushed her out of shore.

“You’ll enjoy it so much darling”, said her mother as she gave her the paddles.

“We’ll see you in the morning”, said both of them in unison before turning their backs to their daughter and returning to work.

Around her, many other kids of her age were going through the same thing. Alya Cesaire’s sisters were crying, Nino Lahiffe was kissing his mother goodbye. Adrien Agreste, the poor boy, was being wished good luck by his personal teacher, his father nowhere in sight. And right besides Marinette, Lila Rossi was gloating about how much of a good sailor she is. Even though she had never gotten a foot on the sand before that day.

“It will be okay, Mari”, said Alya with a reassuring smile. “We will all be okay”

Marinette knew her friend was trying to be of help. She wanted to calm her, wanted to make her feel better. But the fact she also didn’t look so confident didn’t help at all.

“Yeah, dudette. I mean, as long as you don’t encounter the shadows…”

“Nino!”

“What? My mother told me that on her year, one boy was surrounded by shadows and went crazy”

As Nino kept speaking, Mari’s boat started drifting away from Alya and Nino. They were looking farther and farther away and she could barely hear their voices now.

“Don’t worry girl, everything will be alright!”, Alya shouted before both, she and Nino became specks on the horizon.

Just like the ritual promised, Marinette was alone and on her own.

Kind of.

“Maybe you will get surrounded by shadows, you know? You’ll get all crazy and everything. Maybe you’ll fall off the boat and die. Wouldn’t that be amazing!” barked Lila.

For some reason, the currents were keen on keeping both of them together. Mari tried paddling away, but it was of no use. Lila followed right behind. They had been at that for a couple of hours now, and the sky was starting to get dark.

“Shut up, Lila”

“What? Say that again please”

“I said shut up!”

At the same time, Mari shouted, rain poured down on them. Both girls’ faces went white as the sea went calm. They both knew that whenever it rained, huge waves followed behind.

“Oh no”, Mari whispered as the first wave started forming in front of them. Lila started crying and Mari had to gulp down her own tears.

The first wave was in there just for the show. It was fast, but not big enough, and the only thing it did was scare them even more. Lila was beginning to scream now.

The second wave was taller. It was slow though, so it just raised them up to the sky and then sent them back into the sea.

Up there, at the highest point, Mari was ready to faint. She could see them, the shadows, surrounding their boats. They were everywhere, especially in the third wave that was starting to form.

As they say, the third time is the charm.

Marinette and Lila were finally separated, not even Lila’s screams could be heard because of the distance. Mari went up, up, up the wave and for a second there, it seemed as if it would really be able to survive it but well… a second can’t last forever.

Mari was thrown into the ocean. Water invaded her eyes and nose, everything was dark and she couldn’t breathe. She tried going up, but going up was going down and she could feel her lungs start to give out. She started feeling dizzy as she opened her mouth, allowing for the sea to take her as its new and fresh victim.

The last thing she saw was a shadow circling her before losing consciousness.

//////////

The first thing Marinette saw when she opened her eyes was the color blue. Blue from the sky, blue from the ocean, blue from the pretty stranger’s hair…

Wait. That wasn’t right.

I stand corrected, the first thing Marinette saw when she opened her eyes was the beautiful stranger sitting in her boat next to her. As said before, the boats were made to fit only one person, which meant that Mari and the stranger were pretty close. Cuddling, if you will.

Now, the first thing Mari did when she woke up was throw up all the water she had swallowed when she almost drowned. She was polite enough to throw up outside the boat, give back to the sea whatever it had put inside of her.

The next thing she did was scream at the top of her lungs. No words, just scream. Let out all those feelings and the fear she had felt.

Once she had finished, she crossed her arms as she studied the stranger.

He was obviously handsome. Perfect bone structure, perfect blue hair, perfect eyes. Mari won’t admit it, but he also had perfect abs. His eyes were glinting as he watched her, obviously too enthralled in his own thinking to react. For some reason, he reminded her of a puppy. Maybe it was the tail wagging.

“I have gone crazy, haven’t I?”, she murmured.

Crazy or not, the stranger smiled as soon as he heard her speak. He opened his mouth as if to say something but closed it with a look of doubt.

“Can I ask, what the fuck are you and what are you doing in my boat?”

Once again, the stranger opened and closed his mouth without saying anything. He looked as confused as Mari felt at the moment.

“What, you can’t speak?”

The stranger shook his head, side to side.

“That was a no, right?”

He nodded.

“Great. Now I can communicate with the fish boy”

He looked offended at that. His smile faltered as he looked with droopy eyes at his tail.

“Sorry, but you don’t really have a name”

Once again, he opened and closed his mouth.

“If you can’t speak why are you trying so hard to do it?”

He shooked his head.

“No? You aren’t… trying?”

He nodded.

“Then… why?”

The boy didn’t move for at least two seconds. Then, he pointed towards his throat and started making many very weird movements with his hands.

“You don’t have a voice? Oh, you do? Then why can’t you speak? You can understand me, so you know the language. Can you make a sound?”

The boy nodded fastly and opened his mouth, only to be closed once again. He seemed to meditate and then pointed at the sea.

“What is it? Are you leaving?”

This time, he didn’t answer. He just pushed himself off the boat and into the water. He circled the boat, Mari only being able to see his blue and green tail. After five circles, his head popped out of the water again. He tried making a sound, but nothing came out.

He looked frustrated.

“You don’t have to make a sound if you can’t. I was just curious”

He shooked his head once again and went into the water. He continued with the circles and Mari was sure he was as crazy as she was when a sound stopped her thinking.

_A voice._

She looked down into the sea from the boat and saw the boy floating in the water. He had his eyes closed and his mouth opened and the voice seemed to be coming from him.

He was singing.

And god, wasn’t that the most beautiful thing Mari had heard in her whole life. There were no words, just a simple _la, la, la_. It felt as if millions of birds were chirping, happy, overjoyed.

The boy stopped singing and got his head out of the water.

“You can’t speak, and yet you can sing”

He nodded with the brightest smile she had ever seen. Brighter than the sun.

“And you can’t sing out of the water, you can only do it _in_ it”

Once again, he nodded.

Mari sighed in relief for finally understanding him. If she was going to live the rest of her life in solitude with that guy, she at least needed a way of understanding him.

“So, do you have a name?”

He went into the water and sang.

_Luka, that is my name. What is the name of the maiden I saved?_

“Marinette. Wait, you were the one that saved me? You got me out of the water so, you were the shadow…”

Marinette grinned to herself. Everyone had been so scared of the shadows when this one was unable to do any harm. He was like a puppy, a little child. A literal ball of happiness.

A ball of happiness that was singing while doing circles once again. Singing her name over and over again.

_Marinette, Marinette, Marinette. What a beautiful girl I saved, that is Marinette. Mari, Mari, Mari. My new friend Marinette._

She felt her cheeks turn rosy at his compliment.

“I’m your friend?”

He stopped singing and nodded.

She giggled. So much for the solitude and desperation that demanded the ritual.

_Marinette has a beautiful voice, a beautiful giggle. Can Marinette sing like Luka can?_

“Thank you. I can sing, but not as great as you. And certainly not underwater”

_Sing with Luka, Marinette. Sing with me_

“I don’t know what to sing, Luka”

_Sing whatever your heart desires._

Once again, she giggled. Just to make him happy, she sang.

It was a simple melody, an old nursery rhyme that her mother sang to her to sleep. It was enough for Luka, who soon started singing with her. How he knew the words, she had no idea, but right there she just enjoyed his company.

They spent the rest of the day singing and talking. He told her stories about his world, about who he was. She told him stories of the human world, of the way they were scared of the shadows just like him. He chuckled and sang about how funny was the world. His species called humans shadows too, and they were just as scared as humans were.

They sang and sang and sang until it was time for Mari to go back to her home.

_Does the maiden need to go?_

It broke her to hear his voice become so low, so sad. He had a pained look in his eyes, as if he was afraid she would leave and never come back.

Was she going to come back?

“I need to, Luka. There I have my friends and my family. I can’t be without them”

_Marinette can stay with Luka. Luka has friends and family, Marinette can stay with them._

“I would really love that. Sadly, I really need to go”

He sang without words in response, a heartbreaking melody that made Marinette want to stay.

“Luka, please, don’t do that. Don’t sing that. I can come back, I will come and visit you”

_You will?_

“Of course. I can’t leave my fish boy forever, you know?”

_When will Marinette come back?_

“As soon as I can”

_How soon is soon?_

“Tomorrow will be alright for you?”

_Marinette will come soon, soon is tomorrow. Marinette won’t forget her friend Luka._

“No”, she chuckled, “she won’t”


	2. You should never abandon the sea shadows

Being afraid of the unknown is something that has defined human existence through history. The way wars have been sprung just because of a misunderstood difference is incredible. We are afraid of the way someone else talks, the way someone else looks, the way someone else loves. We never stop worrying, never think about how maybe that someone else is as scared of us as we are from them.

We get scared of a lot of things. It is difficult not to when in our DNA code we have been programmed to fear anything just to have a higher chance at survival. And human beings aren’t the only ones that have that characteristic.

Dogs, cats, horses, lions. From the smallest mouse to the biggest elephant. They all got something to fear, something that they are not quite used to.

And in the ocean, things don’t change that much. Sea creatures need to stay in their safety zone, for they could get lost into the unknown and never get back home safely. They have the greatest predators out there, fast and powerful. Big enough to eat them in one bite.

And then, there are the sirens.

They don’t call themselves sirens, just like we don’t call ourselves terrestrials, but that is the name that they have been given. It is the name through which you know them, and for this story, you can’t be scared of them. So, they’ll be sirens, if only because it makes you more comfortable.

Sirens are weird, to say the least. They are quite similar to us terrestrials, in the way that they have built cities and organized themselves in different territories with different governments and different rules. There are nomade sirens just like there is in some place of the ocean a monarchy. There is a war going on right now in the Gulf of Mexico, bringing dead siren bodies to the beaches.

As you may realize, they have many similarities with us.

They are also scared of a lot of things. Scared of what lies beyond their territory, scared of the sirens that live where the sun doesn’t shine. Scared of the shadows that they see over their skies, always there, above them. The few times that these shadows had gone deep enough into the ocean to see a siren, they had all fled.

In one little city of sirens, there were many rules. The Queen had lost many loved ones because of wars with other sirens, so she didn’t allow anyone to leave their territory. She had also had a few bad encounters with the shadows from up above, so she also prohibited to go up enough into the shadows’ territory.

Little sirens were sent to sleep with scary stories of the shadows up above. Stories about how they built floating vehicles called “ships” with the dead bodies of land creatures. They said that the shadows up above couldn’t breathe underwater, but they could breathe up above, where a million toxins invaded the air. They were known for eating what they could get their hands-on, and every once in a while, their boats invaded the whole zone above the Queen’s territory.

One of the little sirens, not so little anymore, that grew up with those stories was Luka. He was born 17 cycles ago, in a day with no night, hence his name. And ever since he was born, no one could make him shut his mouth. He would spend all of his days singing, sometimes even without purpose. His mother and sister would sing with him at first, but after some years, they grew tired.

If there is nothing to say, nothing to feel, then there’s no reason to sing; at least according to the Queen and the entire city. But Luka had so many things to feel, not for others, but for himself. This went against what the sirens thought was right, but they allowed him to continue with his peculiar hobby as long as he did it far from other sirens.

So, he started swimming towards the up above more often. Unlike his brothers and sisters, he wasn’t afraid of the shadows. He wanted to meet them, wanted to hear their voices. And hidden, he did just that. Eventually, he started spending so much time up above that he learned the common tongue. He fell in love with the language, the way that it made him roll his tongue and press his lips together, playing around with sound until it made something that was _meant_ to have a meaning.

Unlike the creatures from up above, he couldn’t speak. Sirens are only meant to sing, not to speak. They were made to be able to survive with nothing but their voices to transmit their feelings and ideas, and that was enough. They had no use for a language, so they didn’t create one.

The night that the Queen’s guard found Luka dangerously close to the surface, singing in the shadows’ tongue, they sent him to a cage. In there, he kept singing those words that no one could really understand, words that weren’t feelings. The Queen allowed him to go, only because he was still young. He was never imprisoned again, but he was shoved aside by his brothers and sisters, shamed for being able to sing with words.

A year later, he continued singing but was now completely separated from the city and the sirens. Every night, he would go up to the surface to hear the shadows, to try and talk just like they did. But since no sound ever came out, Luka concluded that it had to be because he had no one to talk to.

He set up as his personal goal to find someone to talk to, a shadow from up above so that he could be able to finally talk. But every night, every time he got too close to a shadow, they screamed and got away from him as fast as they could. Their boats weren’t made for speed, but they were made for durability and toughness. It had been more than one time that he had crashed against the boats, leaving him bruised and hurt.

Luka kept trying and trying until one day when the sky from up above went dark, he was able to hear screams. Screams with no words, just sound, and feelings. Feelings of being scared and death. The siren went to the surface to help, trying to look for the voice. But once the ocean was calm, he couldn’t see anything. Only a tiny boat, floating alone.

He remembered that the shadows couldn’t swim like he could, so he went underwater, looking for the shadow that had screamed. And he found it, the shadow was falling deep into the sea, her eyes barely open. Luka went towards it and grabbed its hand before the sirens from down below could take a taste from its blood.

He took it in his arms and swam up, up where the air was toxic, up where the shadow could breathe. He set it inside the boat and was prepared to leave it there when he remembered its voice. Its scream. If it was a shadow, then it would be able to speak the common tongue. And if it spoke the common tongue, then Luka would finally be able to speak.

He made space for himself inside the boat, which was difficult taking into account just how small it was. But he made it work by being close with the shadow (sirens never cared for personal space anyway). He was planning on staying awake all throughout the night, but in the end, he fell asleep. When he woke up, the shadow was barely beginning to open its eyes. And then, he met her.

Luka met Marinette and suddenly it felt as if all his life he had been lacking something, something that he had found. Marinette listened to him and sang with words just like him. And even though he still couldn’t speak, they still held conversations through their voices.

She had liked him, she liked his singing and she understood him. He wanted to be with her forever, singing and speaking.

But the sun was setting down and she had to leave. So he pushed her boat onto the sand and swam back home before anyone from her world could see him.

And he came back to the brute reality, where singing with words is frowned upon and there is no one for having a conversation.

One of the sirens had seen him go up to the surface. They had been spying on him and Marinette, horrified by their interaction and the way they communicated with each other. The sirens went to the Queen, who decided that enough was enough. Luka was just putting himself and the others in mortal danger and he needed to be stopped before anyone got seriously hurt.

When Luka swam down back home, he heard a voice. A voice singing without purpose and without need. Just singing because the voice wanted to. Overjoyed, Luka followed the sound of the voice, singing with it. He went into a dark cave, where all he could smell was death and rotten bodies. He was beginning to doubt himself, but the voice reassured him that everything would be alright.

So, he continued swimming until he found his little sister singing without words. Luka smiled, but his sister didn’t look so happy. Something grabbed him by the arms and that’s when he realized he had fallen straight into a trap.

Two of the Queen’s guards were holding him, and a third one floated behind them, carrying what looked like shackles. Luka tried to catch his sister’s eyes, but she soon left swimming outside of the cave, not looking at him even once. He felt as if a knife had been twisted into his heart.

The guards made him swim deeper into the cave until there was no other way to go but up. And up they went, while Luka continued singing, pleading for mercy. He received nothing but deaf ears.

Once they seemed to be happy with the distance they had traveled, the third guard chained him to the rocks. It was high enough for him to see the sunlight but low enough for him to never reach the surface. He could see the boats above his head and if it was loud enough, he could hear the laughing from creatures like Mari. But he was chained and he couldn’t swim up, where he longed to be.

It had already been hours since he was chained when he heard something.

A scream from up above, a scream from a shadow.

The scream held feelings and emotions, feelings of loneliness and worrying and desperation. The scream carried one word, one word that Luka recognized as his own. It was his name, pronounced by the lips of his sweet Marinette.

Her boat was right above him and if he turned his head, he could start to see her shadow. But unlike her, he couldn’t scream. Unlike her, he couldn’t tell her that he was there, right below her. He couldn’t say how much he missed her that day or how much he wanted to be there with her.

All he could do was hear her scream over and over again. He heard her heartbreak over and over again that night.

He opened his mouth to scream back, but it didn’t work. So, he did the only thing he knew how to do.

Luka sang without words, just sang. His voice carried the feelings of sadness and helplessness and he sang as loud as he could, trying to imitate Mari’s screams. But the bubbles only went up, and his voice never got out of the water.

_Marinette_

He sang, quieter this time. He knew she wouldn’t be able to hear him. What was she thinking right now? Was she heartbroken? Desperate? Worried? Full of anger towards Luka for not showing up? He never knew, for she stopped screaming.

As he saw her boat leave, he felt his eyes sting.

For a creature that lives under the sea, water is everywhere. They aren’t afraid of it, nor are they stranged by its feeling. When something wet touches their skin, they can’t feel it. They don’t know what it feels for your tears to run down your cheeks, or for your eyes to become blurry enough so that you become blind to the light.

They just don’t know.

But that night, one of them learned.

And to this day, I have never seen another siren cry like Luka did that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song I was listening to while writing: Everything I wanted, by Billie Eilish.


	3. You should never look for the sea shadows

Remember the first time you fell in love?

The feeling of butterflies in your stomach, of fireworks everywhere. Every time you breathe it’s as if there are petals of roses everywhere. Every time you hold the body ofr the one you lov e warm spreads throughout your whole body. It¿s as if all this time you have been on the verge of dying, and now, with them, you are alive once again.

And then, you are heartbroken. The butterflies migrate to another body and the fireworks aren’t visible anymore. Everytime you see them, you are reminded of what could have been, of how it wasn’t, of how they hurt you. Of how you hurt them.

You believe you’ll never love again. You believe you’ll never breathe as easily as you did by their side.

But then someone new comes across. And it may take time, but soon enough the butterflies come back home. And you are still hurt over the last love, but you ignore your pain because maybe this is the one that’s meant to be.

I always thought it was quite innocent how humans fall in love. They give in to their feelings so easily, without thinking twice. There is something beautiful and captivating about two souls that would give everything up just to be with the other.

That’s the pretty kind of love. The kind of love that everyone wants, the loved that everyone talks about. We take the pretty rose tinted pieces and build a picture with them, ignoring the harsher and darker parts.

Butterflies are cute until they become too much. They fill your stomach, and then you can’t eat without feeling sick. And once there’s no place in your stomach, they move to your arms and legs and head. They are too much, and they are always moving. Your arms and legs become tired and all you want is for them to go, to fly somewhere else, to take that weight off your body.

Fireworks are entertaining, until the light becomes too bright and blinds you. Suddenly, where everything was sunny and happy you can only see black. You know that somewhere out there the sun still shines, but for your eyes there’s nothing outside that void. You long for the days in which there were no fireworks and you could still see.

The petals of roses stop smelling good. They are overpowering your senses, getting your nose all irritated because once you get used to the smell it isn’t as attractive as you once thought it was.

And when you are by their side, everything is too warm. It’s as if you were brought to the surface of the nearest star, and as your face and bones start to melt off, you can’t run away because it just wouldn’t be right. You traveled so many miles through space for that moment but now that you are there, it just doesn’t feel like what you were expecting.

It feels horrible to learn that love sometimes becomes too much.

It gets painful, every breathe you take is as if you were swallowing sea water. You can’t see, you can’t breathe, you can’t move. The only one that can help is _them_ but even _them_ start becoming too much.

It’s at that moment that you wish you never fell in love in the first place. But you don’t want to be rude, so you stay silent and pray to whatever being is out there that love doesn’t end up drowning you.

I have received many prayers and wishes. Golden coins were thrown to fountains, glass bottles with little messages were left alone in the sea. I have heard the cries of women on their knees, I have seen the candles put up. All begging for a chance to be heard, to be understood, to be accepted. And they all usually go to waste.

Usually.

I once received a little bottle from the sea. Inside the bottle, there was a letter. It wasn’t addressed to me, but I read it anyways.

It broke my heart in two.

A creature from the land, and a creature from the sea.

The girl had been separated from her loved one, even though she didn’t know what had been done.

The boy had been hidden from the worlds, left alone to sing to her in hopes one day she would hear him.

And while the girl looked throughout the sea, she wasn’t able to get down enough to see him.

And while the boy sang to the skies, he wasn’t able to sing loud enough to be heard.

I was sad. I pitied them.

But, I was prohibited from interfering directly with the course from the universe, specially mortals.

“Humans, animals, sirens. They’ll all be dead in a couple years. Why bother?”, it’s what they have always said to me.

Sadly for them, love is my weak spot. They never said an ything about interfering indrerectly anyways.

//////////////

It had been a year since the last time Marinette had seen Luka. And still, everyday without a fail, she would take her boat and go looking for him.

The town called her crazy. Rumors said that she had seen the sea shadows, that they had brainwashed her. They would be surprised if they knew just how right they were.

But rumors soon became actions, and soon enough, she was an outcast from the town.

She didn’t care. Maybe she had gone crazy after all.

The days were starting to become an endless cycle of eating, sleeping, and looking for Luka. She wondered if that’s what her life would be from now on.

One day, she went on her boat. While the sea dragged her away from the shore, she sang. Luka had liked her voice after all. Maybe if he heard her, he would go back to the surface.

Hours passed and there was no sign of the boy. She sighed, knowing that it was a day just like the others.

But before she could turn the boat around, the sky went gray. Little droplets fell onto her face and the tide started rising.

Storms are such magical events.

They bring life and destruction at the same time. They can take you away from loved ones, and they can bring you closer to them. They can be gone as fast as they arrived and they can also last days or weeks if it’s necessary.

They can turn little wood boats from little girls over.

Storms can make the ocean angry. They can make it impossible for little girls to swim back up to surface. They can make it easy for little girls to stop breathing and start falling down, down, down where the rest of the shadows can see.

Storms may be noisy in the surface, but inside the ocean they can cause many conversations. Sadly, conversations between sirens are short. They are led by whatever they need, not by what they feel or want to express.

To make this story more understandable, here’s the rough translation of the night’s events.

“It’s a shadow”

“It’s a monster”

“Maybe it’s dead”

“Maybe it’s a trap”

“It is unknown”

“It is terrifying”

“We need to take it away from our people”

“We need to protect the children”

“Take it away”

“Kill it”

“Torture it”

“We don’t want it here”

Under water, bodies weigh way more than on land. The water is against things moving without its permission, so it can be incredibly hard to move a body. Specially when the body belongs to a little girl from the land.

Of course, it doesn’t really help that the sirens are too afraid of humans. They don’t want to touch it, maybe it will bite them or get them sick.

So while the sirens look for a way to move the little girl, her time is running out. After all, humans aren’t meant to be underwater for that long.

The sirens came back with a stick to drag the body around.

“We should throw it to the deep”

“We should put it on our frontier”

“We should send it back to the surface”

As sirens, they couldn’t agree on what to do to the body. They are too selfr centered to take in the opinion of others, so that makes it very difficult to get to an agreement.

Finally a young siren spoke.

“We should take it to him”

“It will frighten him”

“It will make him realize that the monsters are not good”

“He’ll repent”

“He’ll beg for forgiveness”

“He’ll agree with us”

Once their decision was made, the sirens moved the body of the little girl, unaware that she was surely not going to attack them or their fellow siren in anyway.

When they had gotten her to his location, one of the sirens went ahead. The siren held a blindfold, which they put on Luka’s face. Luka sang while the siren worked, already knowing that something was new, something had changed. In all the time he had been caged, they only went to get him scraps of food, and they never stayed that long.

There was something in the sea that they wanted for him to see.

The siren went back and signaled the others that it was ready. They went up towards Luka and chained the little girl to the rocks, right in front of him. After everything was ready, the guard took off Luka’s blindfold, expecting for him to go quiet.

Instead, he sang even louder.

As he opened his eyes and saw his dear Mari in front of him, it was as if he could breathe again. As if he was finally free.

He tried swimming towards her, but the chains held him back. Only then did he notice that her eyes were closed.

Luka sang for her, asking her to look at him. He sang with words, he sang with pride, he sang with love.

_Mari came for me, Mari found me. Luka is no longer alone. We can leave, we can be happy. Mari, Mari, Mari._

She didn’t react, not even move.

_Mari, Mari, Mari. Open your eyes. Mari, Marinette, sing with me. Mari, Mari, Mari._

The guards were in horror. Was the siren crazy enough to try and communicate with the shadow? They c ouldn’t stay there any longer, or else whatever sickness their old friend had caught in the surface would get them too.

The guards left the cave, still hearing Luka’s song becoming more desesparate each second.

_Mari, there’s no need to play, open your eyes._

Nothing.

_Mari?_

It is said that sirens can’t love. Underwater, butterflies can’t breathe and fireworks can’t be seen. There’s no smell other than the one of the sea, and the water is the only one that keeps continuous cold touch.

Love isn’t something they should be able to feel.

But as Luka realized why Mari wasn’t giggling like the last time he had seen her, what he felt could be explained as the consequence of love.

The storm outside the sea was nothing compared to the one in his eyes.

Butterflies swam in his stomach, and for once in his life he felt as if he was drowning.

The fireworks were too much and he became blind to anything that wasn’t her.

Not even the sea or the roses could distract him from the pain in his chest.

Luka sang, trying to scream, trying to cry.

He sang and swam towards her, pulling the chains, trying to break them, trying to rip them apart.

He needed to get to her, he needed to touch her, to take her outside before the warmth of her skin was gone forever. He needed to do something.

He pulled and pulled until not even the rocks could contain the love he felt.

He broke her chains and carried her in his arms, swimming up, up, up where the fireworks can be seen and the butterflies can breathe. Up where she is alive and well and where he can hear her giggles again.

He swam up towards the storm until his head popped out of the water.

Luka waited.

1 minute.

2 minutes.

5 minutes soon became 8, and 8 became 15.

She wasn’t breathing. Even after hugging her chest and opening her mouth, even after trying to breathe for her.

She wasn’t opening her eyes.

///////////

Maybe they were right. Maybe I should have never interfered.

But there is something about watching love grow and die. There is this magic in watching someone love so hard that they break themselves.

Humanity, if you will.

There must be something in their little hearts that is able to change the world and the universe.

Because they surely changed me.

And I’ll be damned if I don’t break the rules for a little chance of love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song I was listening to while writing: A soulmate who wasn’t meant to be; by Jessica Benko.


	4. You should never murder a sea shadow

Life isn’t something static. It changes, slowly, throughout millions of years. Before humans there were huge mammals that dominated the frozen Earth, and before them there were enormous birds who looked more like reptiles than the remains of their own species. And before them, there were many more. Life goes on, no matter what. It doesn’t wait for you to keep her pace, it just goes on, knowing that one of these days you’ll be the next one gone.

And there is no one that is able to see the constant miracles of Life. No one, except maybe me and others. But even some of us haven’t been able to continue Life’s race, falling into ashes. Being by Life’s side makes us oblivious, cold to the beings that keep losing over and over. No God can keep their soul after watching so many living beings die at the hands of the same thing which gave them their lives.

But, as I’ve already told you, I’m a sucker for love. And prohibited love just happens to be my favorite.

You see, with age, comes power. And I’m older than the mountains and the oceans. I’m almost as old as Life itself. So, as you can imagine, my power isn’t something simple. It isn’t something weak, since it has evolved alongside Life. I can do many things in the blink of an eye, I can destroy all of them in a breathe.

I can grant wishes, only when I want to.

And a siren with a human in his arms is something I want to help.

The siren wasn’t singing as he usually did. This time, he was crying, screaming. The cold body in his hands was empty inside and he knew it. He cried without words and he screamed with a whole language on his tongue. He didn’t understand what he was saying, what he wanted, what he was feeling. The only thing he could clearly understand was that _she_ was gone.

After a while, that thought being repeated inside his head so many times gave him a little clarity. He knew what he wanted. He wanted her back, he wanted her and her soul back.

I pitied him, I wanted to help. After all, it was me the one that somehow brought them together, even if it was a mistake the first time and if it was an error the second time. I wanted to help him get her back.

But I can’t give back life.

I’ve tried before, and it doesn’t work that way. Once a body is gone, it’s gone. I can’t change that.

So, to help him, I had to do something a bit different.

Every living being has a soul inside of them. And once you die, that soul goes floating to a little jar, where it waits until the others like me decide if the soul will be used to create something new or if it will go into a new body, a new life.

The girl’s body was empty, yes, but I had her little soul in a little jar, waiting for its destiny. And what a destiny would it have.

I was about to gift away the soul, making sure it would have a good life, when I realized that wasn’t the answer. The siren boy would be missing, and her soul would know it. It would look for him and maybe she would end up in the same position. I couldn’t give her a new body without making sure the siren’s soul was also in a jar.

Maybe I can’t give life, but I can sure as hell take it away.

Now, the question is, would he care? What does he value more? His current life or his friend?

Those would be questions a human would answer, a philosopher. People who actually care about others, people who are always looking for an answer.

I’m a Goddess, not a philosopher. I don’t care for the answers, I just act.

A blink and his body is limp alongside hers, floating on the edge of the water with the sun showering them in light. Quite a cute image if you ask me.

So what now?

Shall I give them the same lives they had, but a few years forward? Two souls alienated from each other because of fear?

I could, but it isn’t the answer. The same method would end in the same result, so separating them is eliminated as an option.

Then they have to be the same species.

Sirens, who can’t love? Or humans, who are too afraid to admit they love?

Remember what I said earlier about how species die?

Life answered my question by making sure there were no sirens in the oceans. I call it karma.

Then, humans it is.

Two humans, but not ordinary humans. No, not at all.

I gave the souls away to the new bodies.

They don’t know it yet, but in some years, once they meet, they’ll realize that the song playing inside their hearts has been leading them to each other all this time.

Hopefully this time there will be no one to keep them apart.

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song I was listening to while writing: Home, by Cavetown.

**Author's Note:**

> A song I was listening to while writing: Home to you, by Sigrid


End file.
